


Life is a Song after All

by Miss_M



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Genre: 55 Fiction, Canon Compliant, Drabble Sequence, F/M, Fairytale Motifs, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-03-30 06:59:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 100
Words: 5,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3927223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaime and Brienne from beginning to end: fighting for a happily ever after.</p><p>Inspired by the <a href="http://100-fairytales.livejournal.com/764.html">100 Fairy Tales Prompt Set</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The fox as shepherd

**Author's Note:**

> AO3 has decided that one of these ficlets is 56 words long. They are, in fact, 55 words each.
> 
> I own nothing.

“Spinning a tale so they’ll feed us is not dishonorable,” Jaime insists, indicates the lonely croft, smoke curling out of its chimney, with his stump.

“Lying is. They are poor folk.” 

“You won’t grow fat on honor, wench.”

Brienne sets her jaw, urges her horse forward. They ride past the croft, sulking in stormy silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a variation on “The Puss in Boots,” with the wily fox standing in for the clever cat.


	2. Curing a sick lion

King Tommen falls victim to poison. His wife and mother fling accusations like sharp stones. The queen mother is already shorn of power and dignity. Doom flocks to the little rose: Margaery Tyrell follows her boy husband to the grave.

Jaime grows feverish from the news, gaunt, haunted. Brienne swallows his insults, waits, and soothes.


	3. The saving blood

Prick a man right, and his life spills out like wine from a punctured wineskin. 

Cut flesh which is diseased, rotting, wilting on the stem, so clean, red blood gushes forth ( _its smell like copper on the roof of Jaime’s mouth_ ), and you might just save the life which bleeds out.

Qyburn cuts. Jaime screams.


	4. The first to see the sunrise

They do not see the dragons push back the dark, icy death of the world. Too far away, fighting and not dying, snatching a little sleep when possible. 

A shimmer on the horizon: forests burning, the dragons’ wake. It goes on for days.

When true sunrise comes, Jaime sleeps. Brienne holds his hand and watches.


	5. Learning to fear men

So long as she has a mail shirt and greaves, a stave or sword in her hand, men’s jeers and taunts, their hatred can’t touch her. Brienne lets evil words wash over her, leaving no trace. Her heart bleeds unseen. 

She learns fear in the Riverlands, hogtied on the cold ground. She learns to trust.


	6. What was whispered in his ear

The wench speaks of weakness, calls him a craven. Tells him to live for revenge, to fight without his sword hand. 

Is she mocking him? What in seven hells does she know? ( _Terrible fear and stony silence._ )

The stars blink down, indifferent. Jaime hears her soft voice, her heart under the terse words. He listens.


	7. Blood-brothers

The Hand’s messenger finds them across the Narrow Sea, long after everything.

“Lord Tyrion had no part in your son’s death,” he tells Jaime. “He still wishes he had, as you no doubt wished him dead many times.”

“I never wished that.”

The man turns away, his duty discharged. Brienne’s hand on Jaime’s shoulder remains.


	8. Sin and grace

Brienne feels obliged to visit the Sept-Beyond-the-Sea. The prayers taste like ashes ( _lies, a dead woman’s charred flesh_ ) in her mouth. Too much of her left behind, blown away and torn off in bloody chunks for faith to survive. 

Brienne lights candles, leaves a few coppers. Gestures without substance.

Jaime passes no comment, for once.


	9. The danced-out shoes

“Look, Brienne! My boots are pits leading down to the seven hells!”

Jaime shoves his hand inside his boot, wiggles fingers through holes where the leather gives way, worn too thin near the soles. He dances barefoot and pretends to play the boot like a lute. 

Brienne cannot muster a reply, snorting tears of laughter.


	10. The princess in the shroud

Everyone dreams of things they want and cannot have. We dream of our shame and what we lost when we gained it. 

The crimson cloaks could not conceal how fresh the dead children’s wounds were. Tommen would have made a slightly bigger bundle on his bier.

Jaime never dreams about Aerys. Only children in shrouds.


	11. The girl as helper in the hero’s fight

“You weren’t careful,” Brienne grits out.

“Gently, wench,” Jaime protests as she presses her spare shirt to his wounded arm. “But for me, you wouldn’t have a head.”

“But for me, you wouldn’t have an arm,” she retorts, bright red.

“I never said you didn’t save me too.”

Brienne turns a milder shade of red.


	12. The youth transformed

Brienne would shave him again if he asked. He doesn’t ask. 

Puddles instead of mirrors provide fewer temptations to linger. Their questing life is better served by Jaime keeping his beard. He’s regained his old weight, all save the weight of a hand at the end of his wrist.

He doesn’t wish to recognize himself.


	13. The magician and his pupil

Slash and parry, a willow sapling her opponent that morning. 

Brienne feels eyes on her, turns, wiping sweat away. “My lady.”

So much like her mother. “Is it too late?” Sansa asks, her voice timid, her spine steel. “For me to learn?” She is watching Oathkeeper clutched in Brienne’s hand.

Brienne shakes her head, speechless.


	14. The youth who wanted to learn what fear is

Jaime doesn’t think about it. Was it fear when he watched men burned before the throne, silent as a stone? When an arakh cleaved his flesh?

The moment before wildfire met air, the arakh came down, the Mummers looked at Brienne and Jaime found his voice.

That moment is death or near as doesn’t matter.


	15. Little brother and little sister

Brienne is ashamed that Galladon is a ghost. She was so young, his face a blur resembling her own. Freckles, a nose, blue eyes.

His death made her responsible for Tarth, for everything. None of it feels like it belongs to her.

Sometimes she has to remind herself Jaime lost a brother and sister too.


	16. Sleeping beauty

Brienne snores, a little. The birds shrill challenge, it’s their forest even if she snores in it.

Jaime smirks. Such fun he can have at her expense once she wakes! For now, he tends their cookfire and watches. Spring sunlight through new leaves, birdsong. All things forgotten. 

Even Brienne’s mangled cheek looks peaceful in sleep.


	17. Friends in life and death

His hand is bone and sinew in hers. He has always been older, only now he looks it. He shouldn’t die lying down. He shouldn’t die. 

Jaime attempts a pained smile. “I never did think you’d let me die alone.” 

_I always thought you’d leave one day_ , Brienne doesn’t say. She smiles back, feigns courage.


	18. The bridge to the other world

“The Rhoynar came west,” Jaime argues. “So did the Targaryens. We can go the other way. Have you something for which to linger, wench? Some betrothed you never mentioned, some father who’s not been slaughtered by sellswords?”

Brienne’s eyes grow sad, her jaw sets. Stubborn but persuadable. Just as Jaime expected. Bridges run both ways.


	19. The confession

The wench’s pleading hands untangle only to bare her neck. She sobs without words, bowing her head.

Jaime doesn’t strike her or draw his sword. He walks out of the firelight, into the muffling dark.

He cannot rage at her _and_ plot to break his oath to the Stark woman. One betrayal at a time.


	20. All stick together

There’s never time to kiss her or grab her hand or say anything. Sharp swords, grasping dead hands, wild beasts too inconsiderate to wait for Jaime Lannister to say what he should tell her. 

Brienne stands on his right, her sword and his drawn, always at his back and by his side: the truth, whispered.


	21. Beloved of women

His mother, he can barely remember.

His sister, he’d rather not remember, never dreams of her without waking in a cold sweat.

His daughter barely knows him. His aunt looked at him with something like pity. His brother’s unfortunate wife, the Tully women – vengeful ghosts all.

The wench stays with him, yet she’s not his.


	22. The dance among thorns

The Tyrells have planted blue roses. Cersei must smell them from her locked chamber. 

In the wintry rose garden, Jaime feints from around a mass of thorns. The wench bristles impressively as she parries. 

“Real foes won’t wait for you to be ready!” he taunts.

His sleeve snags. She knocks the sword from his hand.


	23. The devil’s contract

They say she stinks of the lion, call her a whore, Jaime’s honor in the shape of a sword used to condemn her. 

Brienne rides away, crushed and forlorn. 

What good is her honor if she can trade it away like a sack of grain? What choice is choice when someone must die for it?


	24. Open sesame

The sellsword in Addam’s pay is bigger than Brienne, wears his beard in the Qohorik style. 

Jaime hurries closer, hand on his sword, for all the good that will do. He curses the absence of his golden hand.

“Then we spar on the morrow, good lady,” the man says.

Jaime loosens his grip, seething, relieved.


	25. Invisible voices

The sea booms, soughs, rustles against the shore. Their passage to Essos is like to prove stormy. 

Brienne lies awake while Jaime snores, hearing voices she knows are not real in the waves. She remembers the Whispers, thinks of Tarth far to the south from where she lies. Her life an ocean-weight on her chest.


	26. Her only trick

Jaime blinks before he grins. “I thought you said you wanted to fight, not nurse a mewling babe. I distinctly remember you harping on about it.”

Brienne shrugs. “It’s not my doing alone, ser.”

“You lying wench!” Jaime is grinning in earnest now.

She huffs, preening a little at the uncustomary success of her deceit.


	27. The hunter

“Jaime, what is it?” 

Brienne looks around the marketplace, seeking drawn swords, bellicose faces. Finds none. A man with terrible scars on his face returns Jaime’s stare. Brienne feels a twinge of sympathy, does not touch her cheek. She might need to draw quickly.

“No one,” Jaime says. The scarred man is leaving. “A ghost.”


	28. The lazy boy

Brienne is certain the lad will give up, slink back to Duskendale or run ahead to Maidenpool, to get away from her and her hard taskmistress ways.

Every morning, Pod fetches water, brings out the bread and cheese, and takes up his sword. No fat on him, almost no muscle. Skin and bone and determination.


	29. The snare

Honor is a knight’s true armor.

Honor, not a wall of ice under feeble guard, is what protects the realms of men.

Honor watches over the wedding feast, speaks the blessing on a child’s nameday.

Honor is how they catch you, wench. It trips you, snares you, chokes you. Careful how you wish for it.


	30. The rhyme

Jaime begins to hum as he rises from the Rhoyne, scrubs his armpit. 

“Jaime,” Brienne warns from the riverbank, shaking out his damp shirt.

Jaime lathers his stump, scrubs his other armpit. Face innocent, eyes wicked. “The bear, the bear…”

Brienne throws a boot at his head. Jaime ducks, it sinks. He has another pair.


	31. Thank you three times

Sometimes, Brienne can’t sleep. Jaime has violent nightmares. Brienne lies awake till she is too exhausted to dream, sleep a black well.

She lies in darkness and counts:

Thank the Warrior for the strength in her arm.

Thank the Mother for the life in her belly.

Thank the Maiden for the life sleeping beside her.


	32. Why it turned winter

Their daughter tugs on Jaime’s sleeve: why is it snowing in Volantis? Volantis of the oranges and dwarf elephants.

“Because your mother sneezed in a bakery,” Jaime says one time. Brienne scowls.

Another time: “Because the men at the Wall are lonely and have no women.” Brienne sputters.

Because, because, because. 

The girl keeps asking.


	33. The spider brings luck

War wings closer to King’s Landing. Jaime tracks down Varys. 

Money. Horses. Information on smugglers set to sail for Essos.

The eunuch’s hands flutter, fat white doves. He’d like to help, but…

Jaime’s blade pricks the skin of Varys’ throat this time. Family gone or run mad, Jaime will save himself and Brienne at least.


	34. A pound of flesh

Brienne thinks sometimes that all she’s done is pay and pay. She lost her dreams, her heart, her cheek, her strength, her hope. ( _father, brother, sisters, mother_ ) Yet next to Jaime’s losses, his defeats, Brienne feels churlish and unsettled in these thoughts.

And what did she gain? A suspicious mind. A wary soul. His heart.


	35. Wise through experience

“I thought you were a fool,” Jaime says.

Brienne frowns. They have been riding quietly. Jaime avoids her eye.

“You were so young, so damnably brave. So naïve. You made me feel like a greybeard, wily and wise. When I was only bitter, hardened, and enraged. A real fool.”

Brienne is blushing. Jaime stops talking.


	36. Like wind in the hot sun

Cool water in a desert, a warm hand in the Long Night. Brienne’s hand in his.

Brienne refuses to go to Essos after Jaime threatens Lord Varys to secure them passage out of the capital, after the deaths of her father and his son. So they sail for the Vale.

Too stubborn even for death.


	37. The blood that testified to the truth

“A bite,” she said. 

Jaime doesn’t see it until later, resting by a stream, horses whickering. Brienne rubs the bandage.

“Qyburn used to swear itching meant it’s healing. For all the good that did.”

Brienne is silent, doesn’t interfere when Jaime peels back the stained bandage, looks.

“Tell me true, now. What happened to you?”


	38. The partition of an inheritance

One will have a brain, the other beauty, the third still a heart. 

A mummer’s bargain, Jaime thinks later. Tyrion’s brain could not save him, nor Cersei’s beauty her. As for Jaime’s heart… Some days he’d trade it for a withered right hand, to feel easy in his skin.

Hear them roar. No one listens.


	39. Bargain not to become angry

_He will not make me shout at him_ , Brienne thinks angrily. _He will not bait me like a trained monkey or make me unchain him simply by talking._ Men always use harsh words when they have no sword in their hands. Let him talk.

He calls her _that word_ again. 

“Brienne! My name is Brienne!”


	40. Casting eyes

Looking out from the top of the Wall, Brienne believes – though she knows it can’t be – that she might see as far south as Riverrun, King’s Landing, Tarth. On the other side, the icy wild stretches forever. 

To one side: the charred pile of rubble which was her home. To the other: the world’s end.


	41. Cleaning the child

“Lie still, Brienne. Rest. I will manage.” 

Jaime turns away so she won’t see that his hand and arm shake worse than his voice. A moment just for him.

Holding her between his maimed arm and chest, he checks with his little finger the babe’s mouth and nose are clear. His fourth child. She breathes.


	42. Contest in words

“It was my first vow,” Brienne insists. “Not to accept chastisement from any man who could not outfight me.”

“So you found yourself a cripple, is that it?”

Brienne flushes with anger at Jaime’s obduracy. She swallows, keeps her voice level, almost calm.

“No. I found a man who would never think to chastise me.”


	43. The ogre injured

The Kingslayer bleeds, screams, soils himself, and weeps like any man in pain. ( _any woman or child_ ) 

Brienne doesn’t forget what he’s done, what he is, and how offensive she would find him had she pride enough for offense. But he is in pain.

She does not speak his name softly because she is frightened.


	44. As much as you can carry

When dragons come, they have very little. Food, two cloaks, stout boots, and passage from White Harbor to Braavos, stowed away among bales of wool and empty wine casks. Brienne gets ample payment for the sword.

“You would trade my honor for coin and stale bread?” Jaime japes, stung despite himself.

“Never.” 

The sting eases.


	45. With his whole heart

Jaime never learns to do anything by halves. He loves and he fights with all of himself, and when he can no longer do either, he pieces together what’s left and soldiers on. Heavy words and strange purpose and a stubborn wench’s blind faith. Spittle to hold it all together. 

He loves and he fights.


	46. The man who competes with the devil

A sworn brother of the Kingsguard does not fight his king, only his conscience. Does not defend the weak and protect the innocent, only his king. Does not think or feel or wonder. The Red Keep was built on Kingsguards’ bones.

Jaime gives Aerys Targaryen only what the Mad King deserves. A kind of justice.


	47. The girl who ate so little

Lady Sansa nibbles at her share of the bread, hides most of it in her skirts. Feeds it to her horse when she thinks no one’s looking. Her rouncey’s pelt is the glossiest of all their horses’.

She starts eating more after Brienne agrees to spar. Calluses bleeding on her bread, Sansa wolfs it down.


	48. Sunlight carried into the windowless house

Cersei was sunlight and fresh breeze and all the world’s Springs and Summers to him. In his dank, windowless cell, the memory of her kept Jaime sane and whole while lice feasted on him. 

The miles carried him closer.

Then he is in a dark cave, and only Brienne stays to warm and protect him.


	49. The man takes seriously the prediction of death

“You believe that?” 

Jaime remains incredulous as his sister holds a dagger in both trembling hands to ward him off. Cersei jabs at the air between them, hisses like a cornered cat.

“You fool. Bright, dim fool…”

Jaime’s wit tastes bitter. He strides away for the last time, Cersei’s curses pelting his back like pebbles.


	50. Mistaken identity

Jaime finds a use for his golden hand at last.

“Call her by her name. Call her Brienne.”

Ronnet Connington spits at Jaime’s foot, almost on his boot, and calls the wench another mocking name.

The hand is heavy, cumbersome, and it chafes. Jaime keeps it on while he lessons Connington in courtesy some more.


	51. Fools frightened

_The Purple Bravo_ ’s roll on wintry seas pitches Jaime into Brienne’s arms more precipitately than he intended. 

Brienne’s face is bright red when he finds his feet and looks up, but she doesn’t push him away.

She doesn’t pull him closer either, so Jaime hazards another kiss, heart thundering.

Even fools have to start somewhere.


	52. Sailing in a contrary wind

Neither ever learns to tread clear paths, sail smoothly, choose the easy or the pleasant. 

What Jaime recognizes in himself as simple contrariness, he calls stubborn mulishness in Brienne.

Brienne nurses her soft heart, hides it when she can, as best she can. There is nothing soft about Jaime. Even his love is sharp, stone-strewn.


	53. Hospitality

After the third inn proves full, they reconcile themselves to spending their last night in Westeros in a field, under their travel blankets.

The inn-keep’s wife calls after them, offers them to sleep in the stable for a silver stag.

“Stuff your hospitality,” Jaime replies. “The stars and grass cost nothing and never rob anyone.”


	54. How wide the world is

Their years in Essos are long, longer than Brienne ever hoped she would get or could even imagine, so young when she left her father’s hall. Death seemed to her a glory, something to sing about. 

Now she knows death is like Winter: sometimes it moves slowly, sometimes it rushes, but it always comes eventually.


	55. The girl who patched her apron

Brienne tries to laugh only once after she wakes from dreams of Jaime and cloaks and roses. 

Long Jeyne lifts up the bandage on Brienne’s cheek, purses her thin lips.

“Not me best work,” the girl grouses. “How d’you fill a hole? It ain’t like pinchin’ together a torn apron and keepin’ me stitches straight.”


	56. The silence wager

He can outlast her, Jaime thinks angrily. Bloody wench thinks she’s stronger than he, can go without speaking longer than he. They’ll see how long she lasts when he ignores her scowling.

Jaime glowers at Brienne’s stiff back, resists the urge to caper like a mummer. He’d whistle, but the wench might call that talking.


	57. The old woman as troublemaker

Jaime cannot recall anything about Maggy the Frog, only how frightened and angry Cersei was. In his dreams, Maggy sags on the end of Jaime’s sword, an old wineskin, leaking.

Nothing would have changed, had he listened to Cersei. The old woman was not worth Jaime’s honor. And some of what she said proved right.


	58. The girl who does not know herself

Sansa flinches whenever Brienne adjusts her fighting stance, brushes her hand while passing bread. 

At the Wall, safe in the company of wildling women and her half-brother, Sansa climbs on tiptoe, lays hands light as snowflakes on Brienne’s shoulders, and kisses her ruined cheek.

Brienne’s eyes cloud over. Lady Catelyn’s daughter does not look back.


	59. The thunderstorm

The smallfolk call the Dragon Queen Stormborn in hushed voices. Brienne keeps her storms to herself.

Child of the Stormlands, Brienne grew up rain-lashed, wind-tussled. 

The squall cracks one of the masts on the ship which carries her and Jaime to Braavos. When Jaime first kisses her, and she nearly drowns in wonder and fear.


	60. Staying with a friend in rainy weather

Vermin drops down on their heads from the croft’s soggy straw roof. The walls are cold stone, but they hold firm.

The little fire dances in Sansa Stark’s eyes. Who knew she of all her kin would have a backbone of Valyrian steel?

Brienne is slumped, exhausted, but Jaime feels safer with the wench there.


	61. The practical girl

When their coin runs out, and none of the spice kings and cheese merchants will hire a one-handed Westerosi or a woman to protect them, Brienne sells what’s left of Oathkeeper, half a handful of gold leaf from the pommel.

Jaime knows she is right, chokes down pride with his food, honor with watered wine.


	62. Keeping up appearances

“Jaime, who would notice if we _were_ wed? No one in Volantis cares about us or what name our daughter bears. We are barbarians, and the nearest sept is in Braavos.”

It is not every day that Jaime Lannister looks sheepish. His hand doesn’t know what to do with itself. Brienne kisses his pink cheek.


	63. Clean and tidy

Brienne cares for their weapons, armor, horses, like a babe’s mother. She folds her bedroll with precision and divvies up their food so Jaime gets as much as he needs rather than equal shares.

Her hair is a bird’s nest, and there is black under her fingernails. Jaime imagines her in a soiled white cloak.


	64. Nothing to cook

“Leave it, wench,” Jaime chides. “You’d burn water, and you know it. The horses will end up eating anything you cook.”

“I’ll cook you if you don’t keep quiet!”

Jaime bites his tongue, blinks. Off Brienne’s worried look, he tells her about the Goat’s death.

They eat only dry food for a while after that.


	65. The dead shall remain dead

Jaime prefers nightmares. Fire and blood and the screams of butchered horses. 

Otherwise his dreams are the country of the dead. Children in bloody cloaks, his son’s worm-eaten flesh, Cersei’s false, adamantine smile, his faceless brothers in white. Aerys and Tywin. 

He hates dreaming about Brienne. Warm and alive, he knows she too will die.


	66. A clever boy

Podrick is slight, pale, easily discarded by anyone who ever looked after him, like an old garment.

Brienne neither wants nor needs a squire. Within a moon’s turn, she finds Pod’s company needful. Quiet, tenacious, stubborn. Not much of a swordsman, but he is only a boy.

His feet look very small as they twitch.


	67. The girl who ran so fast

When they bring Galladon up from the beach, blue-lipped and unseeing, salt water dripping from his pockets and hair, Brienne runs away.

She is not frightened or at a loss. She just knows that heavy, inert body they lay out on the high table cannot be her brother. She hides in a haystack and waits.


	68. Carrying part of the load

When the warm water, the steam-filled air, his aching arm, and his memories conspire to unman him, the wench pulls him out as easily as though he were a child.

Jaime keeps quiet while she dresses and shaves him, feeling protected and resentful in equal measure.

It is not the last time Brienne carries him.


	69. The girl who wanted to be always young

Cersei worries too much, always. Never enough youth, strength, beauty, power, respect for her. Even when she has a surfeit of all, as far as Jaime can see.

He never notices how her breasts begin to sag, the corners of her eyes to crinkle, until she looks at him and sees only his missing hand.


	70. The first harbinger of spring

One of the Braavosi canal cats Brienne insists on feeding, a long-tailed tabby the wench named Jeyne, saunters up looking pleased and chewing catnip. 

Brienne stares at the bit of ragged leaf until Jaime plucks it out of her hand and stuffs it in his mouth, meowing loudly. Brienne chases him, struggling not to laugh.


	71. Cleverness and gullibility

“Seven hells, wench, dragons don’t really live on dewdrops and honeyweed! Is there any fancy tale you won’t believe?”

“I was only jesting, not believing it! I never pick at stories you tell!”

Jaime sticks his tongue out at her. Brienne flushes a darker red. 

Myra tugs on Jaime’s empty sleeve. “What’s a wench, papa?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m recycling the daughter’s name from my fic [Ten Broken Beds](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1038814/chapters/2072531), not set in the same ‘verse.


	72. For the long winter

Myra’s first sights are Braavosi canals crusted with ice more grey than green, her mother’s cheeks bright with cold, her father’s yellow hair dusted white. 

Brienne trades swordplay lessons with the bravos while Jaime looks after the child, loath to display himself like a mummer at the cheese kings’ feasts. The babe makes better company.


	73. Know-it-all

The thought of Tyrion as the Dragon Queen’s Hand makes Jaime angry as much as it amuses him. His little brother, now learned in life as well as books, wielding the power their father could not: harnessing the dragon to his purpose.

Hearing news of home in Braavos, Jaime’s life looks impossibly small by comparison.


	74. Building castles in the air

That night outside White Harbor, Jaime spins a tale of what could have been, equal parts rue and defiance in the darkness. 

“You arise a knight, and all of King’s Landing cheers. Your lord father is there, an honored guest. And I, with my brother. And Catelyn Stark, somewhat chastened… Hush, wench. Don’t cry now.”


	75. What should I have said?

Brienne covers her chest, her face scarlet. “There’s nothing good to look at here, ser. You’ve left all that behind.”

Jaime sits up, slams his fist against the mattress. “Stupid as ever,” he hisses. “I said you’re good to look upon, wench. I didn’t say anything about your great golden beauty. Clean out your ears.”


	76. The forgotten word

There are words which make Brienne squirm in discomfort or cloud her eyes with tears, kindle Jaime’s wrath and make him vicious.

Life. Death. Brother. Sister. Podrick. Sword. Words they try to dance around.

They rarely speak of love, though not for want of trying. Something to learn and relearn, always new steps to try.


	77. Jealousy

Brienne never speaks about her erstwhile companions to Jaime. 

Brienne loves him, but she could not bear his jests or his disdain for Hyle Hunt’s unmanly pleas, Podrick’s quiet courage beyond his young years.

She could not bear Jaime questioning why she still wakes weeping after dreams of Pod’s twitching feet or Hyle’s small-beer kindness.


	78. Two match-makers

His joints ache all the time, and his bladder shrinks, rousing him twice or thrice a night. Jaime marvels that he’s managed to live so long. 

When he cannot sleep, he ponders his life’s great fortune, all thanks to Stark women: the mother who brought him and Brienne together, the daughter who kept them so.


	79. Echo answers

Jaime believes in the gods no more than he did as a youth, yet he thanks them nonetheless every time he notices how much his daughter does and does not resemble Cersei. Myra inherited Brienne’s eyes and broad shoulders and flat chest.

Volantene youths swarm around her golden hair and freckles. Acres of potential husbands.


	80. Can’t take a joke

She would never believe him, but Jaime often feels like he is carrying the wench’s soft heart in his hand, a burden both precious and unasked for. 

If he didn’t enjoy seeing her thunderous scowl so much, he might jape less. If he were a better man, Brienne might have saved her heart for another.


	81. Cards fall from the sleeve of the preacher

Jaime used to think Petyr Baelish was clever and no more harmful than any other viper at court. A man whose selfishness one could trust.

As soon as he sees Baelish’s expression when he and Brienne arrive at the Gates of the Moon, Jaime knows the faint rumors about the vanished Stark girl are true.


	82. The man who will never say thanks

When the cold settles on his lungs, Jaime sometimes talks while feverish. Brienne holds his hand and hears him mutter that he should really thank the wench for his life.

He has never thanked her for anything before, nor did Brienne expect it. She strokes Jaime’s brow, soothes him. His words roost in her heart.


	83. The girl who is spinning the thread of fate

Cersei believes she is beset by foes, yet all Jaime sees is a woman even more foolish than she is proud, who hemmed herself in by friends betrayed, lickspittles let down, and enemies roused.

Spit-flecked, Cersei hurls names like rocks, names not heard in years. Tyrion. Maggy. Melara.

Vaguely Jaime recalls a pale, freckled face.


	84. Good-bye, you dirty world

Catelyn Stark had dignity, courage, a quiet strength. No woman ever deserved to have her likeness carved in marble more. Instead she was butchered by false friends, and what came after…

Brienne knows killing Stoneheart was a mercy. She just doesn’t believe it.

Nobody gets the death they deserve. Brienne learns that lesson twice over.


	85. ‘Who gives his own goods shall receive it back tenfold’

The wealthy in Volantis pay for elaborate headstones, the poor and slaves expose their dead to eagles far beyond the city gates. 

Myra’s husband puts up a stone for Jaime. Brienne knows Jaime would mock her, but she likes to sit beside it, in the late afternoon sun. Her life seems a noonday mirage sometimes.


	86. Three words at the grave

The sword is blunt wood, the dress sticks to her torn flesh. Her shoulder is a knot of agony, her breath is coming short. The animal stench will choke her.

Brienne strikes and leaps past the bear because she cannot just stop. She cannot even utter a prayer for herself.

A miracle. 

_He came back._


	87. Imagined penance for imagined sin

“What do you propose, wench? Should I make you follow me back to King’s Landing on your knees? Send you to the Vale alone and on foot? Pull out your tongue for wanting to save your tattered honor and all our lives?”

They face each other, the road dusted with snow. Brienne cannot bear forgiveness.


	88. A realistic demonstration

Jaime gives Brienne the other practice sword one sundown on the Kingsroad, the hollow hill behind them.

Moons and leagues later, Jaime wonders if he should not thank the Stranger that wights are as slow as boulders. Brienne still knocks the sword from his hand every morning, but he’s good enough to slay the dead.


	89. You shall see me a little while longer

“I’ll stay,” Brienne says, squeezing her fist under her cloak, reddening under their gazes. 

The Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch is grateful for his sister’s return, yet seems reluctant to have another woman around, even after Sansa vouches for Brienne.

“I’ll stay and fight.” 

Jon Snow frowns. Jaime smiles. He already said he’ll stay.


	90. Another matter

Sansa asks Brienne to stay on at Winterfell, her natural grace nearly disguising her reluctance. Her eyes keep darting to the solar door. Brienne answered her summons alone.

Sansa will bend the knee and rule in the Dragon Queen’s name. The Maid of Tarth could have a place in her hall. The Kingslayer could not.


	91. Too much talk

“Gods be merciful, do you ever not talk?”

Jaime lifts his head from where he perused out loud the shades of Brienne’s blushes, the darker spots his mouth left on her skin, the scars and blemishes and freckles. His smile is wicked and infuriating.

Snorting, Brienne heaves them over and presses her mouth to his.


	92. Wishing contests

Tyrion reads in a book that if you throw a coin in a well, you may get a wish.

Cersei refuses to go to the well Tyrion suggests, calls Tyrion a babe.

“I’m not a babe, you’re a babe!” Tyrion squalls.

Jaime shuts his eyes while they quarrel, imagines a gold coin, a dark well.


	93. A miraculous escape

Marriage to unkind men. Wagers and lies. A shadow. A bear. Men who called themselves brave but were merely bloody and cruel. A fight in the cold rain by an inn. Sharp teeth. Promises and vows. Her heart in her throat at Pennytree. Winter. So many undead. 

Brienne counts her escapes like jade prayer beads.


	94. Good luck

The horn sounds three times. No rangers have been sent out in weeks, wildlings arrive only to seek the Wall’s protection.

Brienne falls in on Jaime’s right, meets his eyes as she lifts her helmet.

“Last one in on the morrow gets the day-old bread,” he jests.

Brienne huffs. “I’ll save you a seat, ser.”


	95. I knew you were coming

She never saw him in his prime. He was filthy, bedraggled, then maimed when Brienne first knew him. 

Waking from an old woman’s light doze, Brienne _knows_.

Jaime is backlit by the setting sun, more golden than it, and smiling. He has two hands.

He holds them out to her. Brienne has missed him terribly.


	96. Unusual hearing

Brienne never realized small children have such sharp hearing. Myra wakes at the dribble of the first melting icicle, the earliest creaking cart on her nameday, even before the gulls start to cry on the day they leave Braavos.

“Seven buggering hells,” Jaime mutters into his pillow. “I thought only Tyrion had such fine ears.”


	97. The wishing ring

Brienne would have her cheek whole again. She would not worry when her daughter weeps or storms at other children’s cruelty, knowing they will grow up to be good. She would never lie awake listening to Jaime breathe and wondering, fearing.

If she could have three wishes. She would not truly wish away her life.


	98. No time for sickness

A fever seizes Brienne after the birthing, her cheeks flushed, her brow clammy, her freckles become brown flecks. 

“Come on, wench,” Jaime mutters while Brienne sleeps fretfully and the babe drools on his jerkin. “I don’t know any names of women who are not dead to give her. And I’m not a bloody wet nurse.”


	99. The lucky shot

She cuts him, a thin line of pain and a cascade of blood into his eye. Jaime will claim later it was luck or mischance, but the wench has strength and more skill than he anticipated.

When he stabs her thigh, that is luck as well as skill. For all the good it does them.


	100. The poisoned apple

His cloak is white. Hers is blue. 

Jaime speaks his vows to his king, Brienne to her lady.

The king is mad, the lady is dead as well as mad. Innocents suffer, ground down and devoured. Brienne’s eyes dim. Even Jaime was innocent once, long ago.

What they want most is what nearly chokes them.


End file.
